Ornithere: Difference between revisions
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===Mouth Anatomy and Feeding=== |
===Mouth Anatomy and Feeding=== |
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Although nearly all living saucebacks have mandibles (or "tusks"), the mandibles of the jewel-eyed saucebacks are considerably more mandible-like than those of nearly any other sauceback, closely resembling insect mandibles or sideways beaks and even being pigmented. These are used to grab, tear, or crush their food. |
Although nearly all living saucebacks have mandibles (or "tusks"), the mandibles of the jewel-eyed saucebacks are considerably more mandible-like than those of nearly any other sauceback, closely resembling insect mandibles or sideways beaks and even being pigmented. These are used to grab, tear, or crush their food. |
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Jewel-eyed saucebacks and their close relatives have limited up-down flexibility in their mandibles, unlike other saucebacks, as the muscles used to pivot the jaws up and down in other groups instead pull them together for a powerful bite. This gives strong-jawed species a superficially heart-shaped head, due to the powerful muscles bulging outwards. |
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The oral ring--a ring of chitinous teeth present in the mouths of all beastworms (and which was ancestral to all "arthropod-like" binucleids)--is comparatively far more basal in anatomy, though the teeth themselves commonly have serrations (which are absent in most other saucebacks). The teeth aid in both processing food and in pulling it down into the throat to be swallowed. Some species such as the quail raptor have reduced teeth. |
The oral ring--a ring of chitinous teeth present in the mouths of all beastworms (and which was ancestral to all "arthropod-like" binucleids)--is comparatively far more basal in anatomy, though the teeth themselves commonly have serrations (which are absent in most other saucebacks). The teeth aid in both processing food and in pulling it down into the throat to be swallowed. Some species such as the quail raptor have reduced teeth. |
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